This invention relates to an information-arranging device for setting a plurality of information records in a desired sequential order according to the results of comparing the numerical largenesses or value of the key words of every two information units such records read out from two memories.
An information record, hereinafter referred to as "record", indicated on a recording sheet such as a bill is made up of a plurality of items of word information, for example, a bill number, date, customer, unit price, quantity, total amount cost, etc. For collection of such records, for example, it is necessary to arrange the numerical values of particular words given in numerous bills in a prescribed sequential order. With attention paid to bill numbers, said numbers have to be set in an increasing sequential order. Again with notice taken of total amounts, said total amounts have to be arranged in a decreasing sequential order. In this case, the known practice is to select the particular words of a given group of bills requiring comparison as key words, read out said key words to compare the numerical largeness or value thereof and repeat said comparison until a plurality of key words of a word information are set in a prescribed sequential order. With the prior art information-arranging device, however, the determination of the sequential order of a plurality of information units is carried out by presetting a memory capacity in anticipation of a maximum number of digits contained in the records. Therefore, the prior art information arranging device has the drawbacks that where the key words of a considerable portion of a given group of records have a smaller number of digits than said preset maximum number of digits used in determining a memory capacity, some of said memory capacity is wasted. The prior information-arranging device as a whole becomes bulky because a plurality of memories having such an unnecessarily large memory capacity must be provided and in consequence operation of the data-processing device, as well as its control is accomplished by a complicated process.
It is accordingly the object of this invention to provide an information-arranging device wherein a plurality of records are stored in a memory in a desired sequential order by comparing the numerical largenesses or values of the key words of said records without requiring the memory to have a wasteful capacity, even when sequential arrangement is to be made of a large number of recordable records, where key words denote numerical values having different numbers of digits.